Kane cheats, again... or not

Kane woke up.

Recalling what he'd learned last night made him incredibly excited, he'd essentially taken a weaker version of his magic from Ember into the real world!

He wasn't sure if this was permanent or because he used mana before going to bed, but he hadn't really been tired the last two days.

Going through his morning routine, Kane once again continuously cycled mana through his body for training, even holding it still to condition his body a few times.

"Morning sunshine!" His dad called from the kitchen.

"Morning, what's on the menu today?" He wasn't particularly hungry, but flavor was more than enough reason to eat.

His dad chuckled, "Nothing, you can get your breakfast at school."

Kane dropped to his knees dramatically, "W-why, why school? Damn!" he raised his fist up and clenched it.

"I love you buddy, but you aren't skipping school just because you're dramatic."

"Fine," He grumbled.

Kane was heading out towards the street when he heard familiar footsteps sneaking up behind him.

"Hi Cass," He said while side-stepping her grab.

She pouted, "I hate you sometimes."

"Oh, this way Cass," He grabbed her arm and stopped her from wandering off in the opposite direction.

"Thanks, I wonder if we've got any classes together? I wanna see how blind people take notes," She said enthusiastically.

"Oh, and here I thought it was because we were friends," Kane joked in a very robotic voice.

"Nah, we're a married couple that haven't killed each other yet!" She let out a big grin while removing Kane's hand from her arm, placing it at her hand instead.

"Why Cass? Is that my hand you're holding?" Kane smirked.

"It is indeed Kane, I'm walking to school with you while holding your hand, you got a problem with that?" She lifted her chin cockily.

"If you're as hot as you say you are, absolutely none," He snickered.

After some reassurance from Cassy that she's the hottest person in the world, they arrived at the school building and checked for their classes on a board outside.

Kane would have to be careful about reinforcing things with mana, if there's one thing he didn't have time to practice last night, it was controlling his strength, and accidentally killing a student was the last thing we wanted.

Kane used mana to view his class listings, making sure to say them out loud just as Cass began reading them for him, she had a look of extreme confusion on her face.

He also used it to get a general idea of Cassy's appearance, she was slim, but in a good way, had what he assumed was a nice figure, and was tall for her age, though still several inches shorter than Kane.

He didn't know enough about faces to figure out if she would be considered cute, but he liked how she looked, so good enough.

"You checked online or something didn't you?!" Cassy desperately claimed.

"Who knows," Kane shrugged while smiling deviously.

The school ground was spread out like a pentagon.

A long, 4 story, central structure in the middle housed all of the main classes of the high school, while in every corner of the hexagon there was some kind of offshoot building or sports set-up.

The government dictated that every school in the continent have a large amount of space. This sounds nice, but schools are all privately owned, not government-funded.

So it was actually a scummy way to force people creating schools to pay them more for the necessary land.

"Looks like we've got half of our classes together Kane, must be fate," She rolled her eyes.

"If by fate you mean the catalyst for my apparently fated death by your kitchen knife, then sure Cass, fate," Kane said while doing some stretches.

Ignoring that he basically implied sharing half their classes would result in them getting married, Cassy had something she needed to ask, "You're really just going to stretch in front of a crowd of people?"

"Yep! Wanna join?" Kane grinned while doing some lunges.

"Nah, I don't really feel comfortable bending over in front of a bunch of teenage boys."

"Ah, my bad, didn't think of it that way," Kane apologized.

She chuckled, "As long as you understand I guess, I'll be waiting in the... sorry, could you help me find the cafeteria?"

Kane popped up to his feet, "Sure, this way." This time grabbing her hand, he pulled her along.

"Well aren't you bold!" She smiled.

Kane laughed, "You did it first!"

"Yeah, but I'm a girl, so it's different," Cass rolled her eyes, still smiling.

They were getting a few looks from other students, but neither of them had quite enough shame to care... Kane especially.

They eventually arrived at the cafeteria, sitting down at an empty table with their food, Cassy asked another question.

"Do you have any friends here? I haven't seen anyone come talk to you."

"I had one, but we got in a fight before winter break started, haven't really talked since."

"Only one? With your 'charming' personality I thought you'd be the most popular guy here?" She held back a laugh.

"Well, funny enough, when you go around starting fistfights with everyone in your middle school, they kinda don't like you, even 5 years later."

"Wow? Not sure if I should be impressed or worried," Cassy raised an eyebrow.

Kane clicked his tongue, "Try neither, what I was trying to do back then was stupid, and I'm not the same guy I was in middle school."

She shrugged, "Fair enough, I'm just teasing ya."

---------------

Kane's first two classes went by without much happening, just the typical "welcome back" introductions.

Cassy and Kane were seated on opposite ends of the room for two of their classes, though she was right behind him for their third.

The fourth class was PE, which Kane already usually did a great job in, but with the addition of mana, he easily dominated.

He didn't actually use any mana, since he didn't want to stand out too much or be too unfair, but it seemed his newly mana-conditioned body was still several times stronger than before, so he crushed his other classmates regardless.

After receiving an extremely satisfied nod from the teacher, Kane went to his fourth class.

You might be curious as to how a blind kid would keep up with normal classes, do the teachers know braille and assist him? Does he have a personal helper?

The answer to all of this is no, Kane doesn't keep up with normal classes, nor does anyone in school help him.

Genetic defects on the same level as his are an extreme rarity, and nowadays technology can treat most forms of blindness, because of this, very few resources exist to accommodate Kane in private locations like this.

The owner of the school simply didn't have anything prepared for a student like Kane, and the government doesn't care enough to correct that.

Kane had just barely been passing his classes with help from his father, but this wasn't the same Kane from last semester.

That Kane couldn't use mana to scan his surroundings, screw taking notes or studying, he could stretch his perception out and look directly inside of the teacher's book for the answers!

Or... he could... if he knew the actual written language of the continent.

It was just a jumbled mess of lines to him, not to mention he wouldn't be able to stretch his perception out far enough in the classes where he's seated at the back of the room.

'Well... at least I tried,' Kane sighed to himself.

He'd have to study his ass off once more to keep up, at least this would be his last year doing it.

--------------

The rest of the day went by in a flash, once again dodging Cassy as she snuck up behind him, he walked home.

Cycling mana almost constantly had amazing benefits, especially as he now prioritized using it to strengthen his body whenever possible.

His speed and physical strength had just barely become that of an Olympic athlete, and his mana control had reached a point where he could direct it to individual muscles instead of spreading it around a general area.

The speed in which he could absorb, move, or disperse mana had nearly tripled since last night! He also had quadruple the capacity.

Kane couldn't wait to test out his abilities and possibly try experimenting with new ones.

Cassy ruffled his hair and waved goodbye as they walked off towards their separate apartments.

Kane was quite happy things were going well with her, it'd been a while since a girl had joked around with him so sincerely.

Kane's apartment was once more met with silence, as usual these days. His dad was still at work, though that was to be expected seeing as it was only 4 pm.

Kane had time to kill, so he put on some music and gave his all in further improving his body and mana.

The rapid, heavy, asymmetrical rhythm of metal helped motivate Kane to push it as far as he could.

His channels didn't widen his from releasing or absorbing mana, but by moving mana through them, so that's what he did.

Over and over again, through every part of his body, Kane forced mana to flow in and out.

He even worked on his control by creating a thin layer around his skin and making it stay evenly distributed. Though this had a small mana drain.

Kane found that he couldn't get his hands through the barrier without using a lot of force. Breaking part of the barrier used up a lot of mana, however, as more had to replace it.

Ambient mana couldn't penetrate the barrier either, making absorbing more while using it impossible.

He theorized he could still use attacks though, as mana seemed to pass through the barrier from the inside just fine.

Eventually, the sun went down.

With his body now beyond the level of a human, and every aspect of his mana being more powerful than before, Kane made his way to the park. Checking for anyone nearby, Kane chose to teleport straight to the ground from the third floor.

He pulled it off, though not without using nearly every drop of mana in his body.

Kane dashed through the park silently, going what seemed like 30 miles an hour.

"This is ridiculous!" Kane puffed happily while sliding to a stop, his stamina had grown ridiculous as well.

He figured his black hole had grown several times stronger but opted to fire off some pure mana before he tested anything.

Raising his finger to the sky, he condensed all of the mana in his body to a single point, forcing it to become even smaller than before thanks to his increased control.

His finger was a blur as it seemed to fluctuate through reality itself, finally releasing the bullet with a push from some regular mana, a small beam silently shot through the air at ludicrous speed.

Kane seemed to have a mental link with his own spell, he could feel where it was at all times.

Bending space itself with the last mana he had available, he managed to curve the beam's trajectory back towards the ground.

"I can control these things mid-shot!" Kane pumped his hand up excitedly.

His feelings of joy were short-lived as the beam of mana violently hurled down, taking off Kane's index finger and splitting the ground with a loud 'crack.'

Kane covered his mouth as tightly as possible and yelled in pain, he put pressure on his bleeding stump of a finger while letting out every curse word in existence, shakily tearing up as he tried not to blackout.

Thanks to his training, it didn't take long to regain enough mana to ease the pain.

Turns out, regenerating an entirely missing part of the body was extremely strenuous. The first set of mana stopped the bleeding and repaired some of the bone, allowing him to return home without getting blood on the floor.

Locking himself in his room, Kane tried to stop his shaking as he poured more mana into the wound.

With each set, a little bit of the bone came back, then some muscle grew over the restored bone.

Almost an hour later, skin began growing over the exposed muscle as he kept pouring more and more into the wound.

Finally, after what seemed like a thousand cycles of mana, his hand was completely back to normal, and Kane began calming down.

He wanted to vomit, but the warmth of his mana was just barely allowing him to resist the urge.

Kane went out to the kitchen and got some water, deciding not to try controlling spells above his head until he had more control. He could've died there had it been a few inches off.

He wondered how many more times he could get away with practicing in the park before people started reporting all the damage, he'd need a more solid plan.

There was a massive abandoned factory complex he could go to, but it was 10 miles away.

"Oh wait a minute, I could probably just run that now," Kane nervously chuckled to himself.

As much as he hated saying it, chopping off his finger and being forced to rapidly repair it was a much more effective way of training his mana than his usual methods.

But for obvious reasons, Kane wouldn't be doing that. At least not until he could take the pain better or heal it up in one or two cycles, even then, Kane didn't think he could make himself do it.